A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell, #1)

by Deanna Raybourn

I took a sip of the tea, pleased to find it scalding hot and properly strong. I abhorred weakness of any kind but most particularly in my tea.

“Stoker,” the baron called. The man whirled, his hands still gripping the animal’s skin, his face imperfectly illuminated by the fire. He was half in shadow, and the shadow revealed him slowly. His left eye was covered by a black leather patch, and thin white scars raked his brow and the cheekbone below.

One cannot innovate new improvements without understanding old failures.”

I have faith that men can be as reasonable and logical as women if they but try.”

We are, as a gender, undereducated and infantilized to the point of idiocy. But those of us who have been given the benefit of learning and useful occupation, well, we are proof that the traditional notions of feminine delicacy and helplessness are the purest poppycock.”

“R.T.-V.,” I murmured. “Revelstoke Templeton-Vane.

In my experience, Americans were very friendly and very fond of their firearms.

Aint that the truth

“Miss Speedwell, whether you like it or not, these documents prove that you are, in fact, the most dangerous person in the British Empire.”

I put out my hand. “There is no one I would rather have at my back. To the end, then.” He grasped my hand and shook it. “To the end.”

“You are a true friend to Stoker.”

“Call it a birthday present. I noticed the date on the documents. You are five and twenty today. Happy birthday, Veronica.”

We bickered happily all the way back to Bishop’s Folly, as I had expected we would. Whatever Stoker and I undertook, we should never do so without a feisty discussion and a pitched battle of wits. But, far from discomfiting me, that notion caused my spirits to rise and my steps to quicken with anticipation.

A thousand adventures lay before us, and I could not wait to begin them. As the excellent Arcadia Brown, Lady Detective, so often proclaimed, “Excelsior!”